Can you take this survey to help design a better system for sickness, disability and work?

Forget lifting empty cardboard boxes or picking up pound coins from the floor.

What are the real life factors that limit or prevent you working with a long term health condition?
And what are the adjustments, or forms of support you would need to improve your chances of getting and holding down paid work?

Do you need a compulsory course in motivation building, for example? Or do you need an understanding employer who can tailor a job description to your capabilities?

An important consultation is taking place about the future of Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and the hated Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and your views are urgently needed to shape recommendations for what a better incapacity benefit and employment support should look like.

URGENT – YOUR VIEWS ON CUTS TO ESA IN THE WELFARE REFORM BILL NEEDED BY 15TH NOVEMBER

Spartacus produced a briefing when the Chancellor announced his plans this summer to cut £30 per week from the benefits of people in the ESA Work Related Activity Group in order to incentivise them to return to work.

We said that cutting social security for disabled people would place the UK government in breach of its international treaty obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. What’s more, this plan is based on the false assumption that people in the WRAG have motivational problems, rather than health or labour market barriers.

Now we welcome a parliamentary review led by Lord Low of Dalston in December to give evidence on how these proposed cuts will affect disabled people and…

The Work and Pensions Committee published its report on the future of welfare to work this week. Its key message is that the government must focus employment support on people with complex needs, in particular expanding provision for people with substantial disability.

There is an obvious solution to the flaws identified in the design of the existing specialist disability employment scheme, Work Choice. And it is the same solution to some of the legendary flaws in the Work Capability Assessment, especially the vexing issue of the work-related activity group (WRAG), where people with severe ill health are put through a punishing back to work regime incapable of addressing their needs. Yet no one seems to have had the insight or will to name it. Continue reading →

A conversation with a colleague earlier this week made me think about what’s really wrong with this Government’s disability policy. I know disabled people are set up to fail by the actions of DWP and JobCentre Plus, that the Work Capability Assessment is a disaster, that many disabled people will have their independence compromised by the change from Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payment, that “protection” of the “most vulnerable” (whoever they are!) from cuts is merely a rhetorical illusion, that cuts in funding to local authorities and the closure of the Independent Living Fund are undermining social care – to list just a few aspects of this Government’s lamentable record. It’s a depressing litany of failure… Continue reading →

Vulnerability seemed to be last week’s buzz word. Are people on JSA with mental health problems “vulnerable”? Should society only support the “most vulnerable”? Is Cameron’s targeting of the “most vulnerable” a progressive policy?

By now your blood will probably coming to the boil and you’re likely to be screaming at your “interactive device” of choice. I really don’t blame you – “vulnerable” has become a toxic word in a toxic society with toxic Government policies.

The Social Model of Disability describes how society disables people. However, “vulnerability” seems to be a very different sort of model, artificially created to describe those who are “worthy” of help, to differentiate them from the rest – and it’s a double edged sword. Continue reading →

As widely trailed in the general election campaign and in the run-up to budget day, the Chancellor’s Summer 2015 budget included devastating cuts to social security and tax credits, effectively summarised by Disability Rights UK. Despite Osborne’s oft-repeated assurances, in both this and the last Parliament, that disability benefits would be excluded from cuts, there is much in the budget to cause deep concern for disabled people. As in previous rounds of cuts, this is because disabled people rely as much, if not more than non-disabled people, on “mainstream” benefits – such as housing benefit and tax credits. Continue reading →

The announcement this week of a new Conservative Party plan to repeal the Human Rights Act, ‘Protecting Human Rights in the UK’, has brought to a boil a cauldron of incredulity (pictured) about the Government’s attitude towards the law. The response from human rights lawyers and advocacy groups has been swift. Liberty describes the Conservative Party plan as ‘legally illiterate’. The several ways in which that is true have already been the subject of detailed exposition. Indeed, Liberty’s response is even more accurate than it might first appear. If the Conservative Party plan is legally illiterate then it is best read as a political tactic to assure its supporters that it is the party of anti-European sentiment.

Nevertheless, if the move helps to bring about a Conservative Party government after the general election next May, then there is a great likelihood that steps will be taken…